‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ kicks off 2017 with 3 series-changing moments

“Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” has already established a dedicated niche audience on Friday nights with the spectacle that is Rebecca Bunch’s (Rachel Bloom) love life. With brilliantly clever musical interludes seamlessly dancing between the moments of moving drama, its second season is unquestionably funnier, more layered — and bolder in venturing toward more taboo subjects that in Season 1.

And with the winter premiere Friday, Jan. 6, we can confidently say that the whirlwind drama only keeps going harder.

RELATED: Paula leads ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ into fearless feminist territory

The very first few minutes of “Who is Josh’s Soup Fairy?” had our jaws dropping, and OMG moments that’ll have series-changing effects continued on throughout the bonus winter premiere hour, “When do I get to Spend Time with Josh?” While at times the dramatic turns veered toward daytime soap territory, the numerous unexpected shifts wonderfully shake up the trajectory of these beloved characters, giving “Crazy Ex” a fresh new makeover moving forward.

Here are the Top 3 “Holy crap, I can’t believe they went there — we must discuss!” moments from the two-hour winter premiere:

Paula’s husband cheats

Whoa. Okay. So, the setup for Scott (Steve Monroe)’s rendezvous with a coworker has been briefly hinted at — but watching him break the news to Paula (Donna Lynn Champlin) that he cheated, and her promptly kicking his cheating butt out of the house, was one surprising yet solid plot twist. It’s heartbreaking to see anyone hurt Paula so deeply, but empowering to see the aspiring attorney take a mere two seconds before deciding to kick her unfaithful husband packing.

A single and ready to mingle Paula is not something we thought we’d ever see — but now that it’s happening, it’s hard to think of this being a bad thing. Paula has been blossoming into a confident amazing woman through the series, and we know what she could become without the dimwitted ball-and-chain of Scott attached to her leg is limitless.

Rebecca and Josh are officially back together

Oh, how the tables have turned! After Anna broke up with Josh, Rebecca made her ex (Vincent Rodriguez III) work hard to get her back. And now it appears that Rebecca finally has everything she wanted… Right? Josh is the main reason she moved to West Covina in the first place (even if it’s more nuanced than that) … But is Josh enough for her? According to Rebecca’s new boss, not even close.

Sidenote: Where is Valencia (Gabrielle Ruiz)? She did not appear anywhere in the two-hour winter premiere — and discovering that Rebecca, supposedly her current bestie, is getting back together with Josh… Well, we’re curious to see what her reaction will be.

Rebecca’s new boss

Darryl (Pete Gardner) sold part of the firm to a big corporation — and now the hometown office for which Rebecca adored is becoming the exact job she escaped from in New York City. Making matter worse is that the new head honcho (Scott Michael Foster) is a total hunk — and intellectually on the same level of the Harvard and Yale educated Rebecca. While Nathaniel has a crazy hot girlfriend, it’s not keeping him from laughing at Josh — and planting thoughts in Rebecca’s head that she’s dating an embarrassment. The sexual tension between the two is palpable: Nathaniel looks like he’s about pop the Josh and Rebecca love bubble.

All in all, a beautiful two hours for a show that we adore, and continually worry for! If all these changes are building toward the finale, we are just not ready. But in the meantime, we can content ourselves that these separate characters are exactly where they need to be: Rebecca facing her issues — her fear of “what happy feels like,” blindness to Josh’s faults, and refusal to stay in the real world for more than a few minutes at a stretch…

And there’s Paula, whose definitive choice of herself and her career over the home life she’s always treated like a jail sentence is finally setting her free. While a more basic show might reveal a cheating spouse as some kind of punishment for her work focus (and a terrible one might do the same about her abortion) — here we can root for Paula to find the self she always needed to be, and take the pain and shock in stride right alongside her.

It reminds us most, perhaps, of Greg’s (Santino Fontana) addiction/recovery/sh*tshow/vanishing act, that provided so much strong story in the show’s earlier arcs: If there’s one thing the show’s great at — even if its leads are emphatically not — it’s looking at the hardest parts of life, and finding the beauty in them nevertheless. That’s exactly why we love it.

“Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” airs on Friday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.

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